Series 4 - David Tennant - Partners in crime

Partners in Crime is the episode that signals Donna’s return to the show following her appearance in the ‘Runaway Bride’. Though possibly not one of her best episodes it gives a good insight into the relationship that the Doctor and his Donna will share for the rest of the series.

Catherine Tate’s Donna is almost definitely one of the most exciting companions that the Doctor has had, not only because she is the only one of the Doctor’s companions thus far in the modern series who does not fancy the Doctor and isn’t looking for any kind of romantic attention from him but because she is also an incredibly independent and strong woman who knows her own mind and isn’t afraid to tell the Doctor off when he is simply not being human enough. Donna finds the Doctor again after she finds herself unable to settle back into her normal life following their last encounter. Intent on finding the peculiar man in the blue box, Donna begins to investigate the mysterious Adipose Industries whose diet pills supposedly allow your fat to just walk away.

Series 5 - Matt Smith - 'The Pandorica Opens' and 'The Big Bang'

It appears we’ve been on a bit of a Matt Smith binge but this is hardly surprising having just acquired the blu-rays for seasons 5 and 6. For our 56th and 57th evenings with the Doctor we chose the two part story which sees the Doctor face all of his foes in one big standoff surrounding the mysterious Pandorica. As the finale of Matt Smith’s first series as the Doctor the audience widely expected wonderful things from The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang and with the promise of appearances from River Song, the Daleks, the Cybermen and well, just about every race of monsters the Doctor has ever come up against, there was only one way this episode could go.

Series 5 - Matt Smith - The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood

This two part story is the first episode to include the Silurians since the show’s 2005 re-launch. The Silurians are a species of Homo-reptilia who inhabited the earth long before the human race evolved. Legend has it that they took to their stasis chambers to sleep in order to avoid a disaster that they have predicted would affect the Earth in the coming years. The Silurians are a vastly advanced race when compared with humans, their technology and medicine outstrips the achievements of Earth by miles and they have seen more of the universe than humans have dreamed of so far. The Silurians have an army of female homo-reptilia who are fierce resourceful warriors with venomous tongues, camouflaged armour and pretty impressive blaster guns.

Series 6 - Matt Smith - The Girl Who Waited

The Girl who waited is probably one of Rory’s stronger episodes and Arthur Darvill plays the unlikely hero perfectly. Following his performances in ‘The Rebel Flesh’, ‘The Almost People’ and ‘A Good Man Goes to War’ Rory has shed his status as ‘Companion’s Boyfriend’ and has become a bonafide companion in his own right. He is a strong willed compassionate and caring character who shares the Doctor’s enthusiasm for preserving life but with much less passion for adventure and a much less prominent lust for danger and excitement. Rory is everyone’s favourite reluctant adventurer.

Arthur’s portrayal of the grief that comes from knowing that you are failing to save the woman you love and the way he deals with being confronted with the very woman he is failing to save is beautifully performed with just the right balance of despair, hope and frustration. Rory confronts the Doctor’s decision to trick the older Amy in order to save the younger Amy in a way that only Rory can. He gets right to the point of it, expressing the emotions that every audience member falls seeing the unfairness of Amy’s predicament and of the decision that the Doctor and Rory are forced to make. Yet Rory understands why the Doctor had to do what he did which is what makes him stand out so much as a companion. He is prepared to tell the Doctor how he feels but he is also prepared to do whatever it takes to keep Amy safe. I can’t think of many romances more beautiful than that of The Last Centurion and The Girl Who Waited.

Series 4 - David Tennant - The Stolen Earth and Journey's End

This two part story from the fourth Series of the re-launch Doctor Who is the finale of David Tennant’s last series with the show.  Following these episodes he only appeared in a series of specials before he gave his life to save Wilfred and regenerated into Matt Smith. Remarkably this episode didn’t just mark the end of David Tennant’s time as the Doctor but also celebrated Doctor Who’s 750^th episode and tied up a whole load of loose ends left over from the series.

So much happens in this episode and there are so many moments for the fans that you almost forget that this is the first appearance of Davros since the show’s return. Who doesn’t love a good Dalek episode? Davros’ plan is to use the 27 planets that he has stolen to create a ‘reality bomb’ which he will use to destroy the universe, very dastardly. As ever the Daleks are a very formidable foe, they work their way around the world cutting off communication links between the Doctor’s allies in the hope of stopping the Tardis from locating Earth. Martha, Sarah Jane, Harriett Jones and Torchwood are using their combined power to create a subwave signal that the Doctor will be able to track down from outside of the pocket universe they have been confined to.  

Series 4 - David Tennant - Turn Left

Turn left is another of those episodes where you barely see the Doctor; in fact for a large part of this episode the Doctor is dead! This is the episode where Donna is educated on her own importance and comes to understand how finely intertwined her destiny is to the destiny of the universe. In this episode conspiring presences from the universe and beyond force Donna to turn right at a crossroads in her life that had originally lead her to the Doctor.

If Donna never meets the Doctor then she doesn’t convince him to leave after he kills the Racnoss children and the Doctor dies, leaving the Earth to fend for itself. Without the Doctor Martha and Sarah Jane die at the hands of the Judoon, thousands of people die when the Titanic crashes into Buckingham Palace, 60 million people die in America as the Adipose rise and the Sontarans kill the entire Torchwood team bar Captain Jack who is left alone. England is thrown into a state of martial law, thousands of people need to be rehomed following the destruction of London and refugees are sent all over the country meanwhile immigrants are rounded up and placed into ‘Labour Camps’  in a horrible flashback to the holocaust.